by Jean Sasson
Now, just as Ali had resembled our father in character and behavior, Majed was the image of Ali.
Kareem and I left my brother and his son when Ali began to strike Majed with his bare hands.
A week later Ali confided to Kareem that the problem had been “handled.” He reported that he had located the Pakistani orderly and had made the man very rich. The Pakistani had invested his money in Canada, and with Ali’s assistance would soon receive a passport to that country. Our family would hear no more from that troublemaker, Ali declared.
Shaking his head in bafflement, he told Kareem, “All this disruption, for a woman.”
Neither the hospital nor the family of the woman raped by Majed was ever aware of the truth of the matter, that the guilty party was a royal prince.
Majed was sent away to school in the West. Amani, convinced that no punishment could be worse than banishment from the land of the Prophet, was pacified.
Once again, wealth had absolved the family responsibility for a crime committed.
I suppose I should not have been angry or surprised, for as my brother said, it was only a woman.
It seemed that nothing disturbed the male domination of my country, even when one of their own was guilty of the most heinous crime.
Love Affair
When love beckons to you, follow him, though his ways are hard and steep.
—KAHLIL GIBRAN
Amani and her sister, Maha, woke me from a pleasant afternoon nap. Through the heavy doors leading into my private quarters, I could hear my daughters screaming at one another.
What had Amani done now? I thought to myself as I quickly dressed. Since Amani’s religious conversion, she liked to tell people what she thought of them, never hesitating to enumerate the immoral actions of her brother and sister, searching endlessly for a pretext to censure her siblings.
My son, Abdullah, was loath to fight. Dreading Amani’s incalculable and apparently unappeasable wrath, Abdullah, more often than not, simply ignored his sister. On the rare occasions that Amani’s demands were simple to fulfill, he capitulated.
Amani did not find such agreement possible with Maha. In her older sister, Amani was dealing with a female whose character was at least as strong as her own, for Maha’s violent temper had been apparent from her first breath.
I followed the sound of my daughters’ shouts. Several of the servants were standing in the doorway of the kitchen, but they were disinclined to interrupt what to their eyes was lively entertainment.
I had to push my way into the room. I arrived at an opportune moment. Maha, who is much fiercer than her younger sister, had reacted violently to Amani’s latest regulation. As I rushed toward my daughters, I saw that Maha had her younger sister pinned on the floor and was rubbing her face into the pages of the morning newspaper!
It was as I had thought! Just the week before, Amani and her religious group had come to the conclusion that the kingdom’s daily newspapers were made holy because their pages contained the word God, the sayings of the Holy Prophet, and verses of the Koran. The committee had decreed that newspapers were not to be walked upon, eaten upon, or thrown into the trash. At the time, Amani had given notice to her family of this religious decision, and now she had evidently apprehended Maha committing an irreverent act, heedless of her noble instruction.
The result had been predictable. I shouted, “Maha! Release your sister!” Spurred on by her anger, Maha seemed not to hear my excited command. I made a futile attempt to pull Maha away from her sister, but my daughter was determined to teach Amani a lesson. Since Maha was stronger than Amani and I together, she was the victor of our three-way struggle.
Red-faced and breathing with great effort, I looked to the servants for assistance, and one of the Egyptian drivers moved quickly to intervene. The man had strong arms and was successful in separating my daughters.
One battle always invites another. Verbal insults replaced physical force. Maha began to curse her baby sister, who was weeping bitter tears while accusing her elder sister of being a non-believer.
I proposed to mediate but could not be heard above the mayhem. I pinched the skin on my daughters’ arms until they were silenced. Maha stood in smoldering sullenness. Amani, still on her hands and knees, reached to straighten the pages of the ripped newspaper. My daughter kept her devotions to the end!
The causes for religious fervor are many, and the results are endless. It occurred to me that some people appear at their worst in their religion. Certainly, that was the case with Amani. In the past I had felt both doubtful and hopeful that religion could, in time, soothe rather than incite Amani. But now I felt with dull certainty that such would not be the case.
My patience did not equal my anger, and I led my daughters by their ears into the sitting room. With a firm voice, I called for the servants to leave us to ourselves. I glared at my children, thinking ungallantly that I had made a grievous mistake in inflicting upon the world such troublesome characters.
“The wailing of the newborn infant is nothing more than a siren of warning sung for a mother,” I said to my daughters.
My face and glance must have made me look like a madwoman, for my daughters’ expressions were stricken. They held a curious respect for their mother’s moments of insanity.
Thinking to avoid a second, larger quarrel with three participants rather than two, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Once calmed, I told my daughters that each of them would have an opportunity to speak but that there would be no more violence.
Maha burst out, “Too much! Too much! Amani is driving me insane! She will leave me alone, or...” I could see that Maha was searching through her mind for the worst possible insult, “I will slip into her room and rip up her Koran!”
Amani gasped in horror at the thought. Knowing how spirited and daring Maha could be when she was determined, I forbade my daughter the irreverent act.
Her fury unleashed, Maha continued. “This stupid idea of not discarding old papers! We will be forced to build a large building to store them.” She looked at her sister, “You have lost all good sense, Amani!” Maha looked back at me and charged her sister with dictatorship, “Mother, from the moment we departed Haj, Amani no longer feels my equal but my master!”
I agreed completely with Maha. I had seen my daughter’s religious beliefs pass, with impressive speed, from confusion to a flourishing vision. Her sense of divine righteousness was producing ridiculous household sanctions that excluded no one.
Just a few days before, she had discovered one of the Filipino gardeners proudly displaying a pair of rubber sandals that had been imprinted with the name of God on their soles.
Instead of granting the anticipated praise for his purchase, Amani shrieked in rage, grabbing the poor fellow’s shoes and accusing him of blasphemy, threatening him with severe punishment.
In tears, the young man confessed that he had purchased the shoes in Bahtha, a popular shopping souq located in the downtown district of Riyadh. He thought his Muslim employers would be pleased to see that the name of God was printed on his shoes.
Calling the shoes the work of the devil, Amani called a special meeting of her religious group and stunned them all by revealing the sacrilegious shoes.
Word spread to other religious groups, and pamphlets were distributed in the city, advising people not to buy or to wear such shoes.
The shoes were rather shocking, since Muslims are taught never to walk on any item bearing God’s name, even going so far as to be sure our shoes are never left lying sole up, in case that might be some insult to our maker. Yet, Amani’s reaction was somewhat dramatic, since the young Filipino was not of our faith and not acquainted with our truths. My daughter was cruel in her angry denunciations.
Since an early age, I have been drawn to the idea of a kindly God, a being that does not find sin in every human delight. I knew with certainty that my child was not acquainted with the God of Mohammed, as taught to me by my loving mother. I sent a questi
onable prayer to my maker, asking that Amani’s gloomy devoutness take a holiday.
My thoughts returned to the present crisis, and I looked upon my daughters.
With Maha’s threat of defacing her Koran looming as a real possibility, Amani promised to refrain from inspecting her siblings’ habits.
Maha declared that if Amani would only leave her to her own inclinations, however distracting they might be to her sister, she would commit no further violence.
I hoped the truce would stick, but I had my doubts, for Amani was readily moved to judge all before her, never really happy except when making religious war. And Maha was not one to bear timidly the taunts of her sister.
My two daughters, trapped in a family unit, were too volatile a mixture for everlasting peace.
I abandoned desolation and yielded to motherly affection. With the deepest love, I embraced each of my daughters.
Maha, always quick to anger and prompt to forgive, gave me a genuine smile of peace. Amani, slow to pardon those she deemed in the wrong, was stiff and did not yield to my affection.
Exhausted by the responsibilities of motherhood, I wistfully observed my girls as they went their separate ways.
All at once, the room was empty of their mad energy, but the resulting quiet was not comforting. I felt edgy, and told myself that I was in need of a stimulant.
I rang the bell for Cora and asked that she bring me a cup of Turkish coffee. Then, without knowing my reason, I abruptly changed my mind and asked instead that she mix me a strong drink of bourbon and cola.
Cora stood openmouthed with surprise. It was the first time I had requested a drink of alcohol during the daylight hours.
“Go on,” I demanded.
I sat, reading the newspaper without absorbing the news. I admitted to myself that I was looking forward to my drink with discomfiting anticipation, when Abdullah arrived at home.
Abdullah moved with speed through the door into the hallway. I caught a glimpse of my son’s face and did not like what I saw. Accustomed to his gentle character, I knew from his dark expression that he was torn by agony.
I called out, “Abdullah!”
Abdullah strode into the room. Without inquiry, he let loose his anguish.
“Mother! Jafer has fled the kingdom!”
“What?”
“He has run away! With Fouad’s daughter, Fayza.”
Staggered by confusion and skepticism, I could not speak. With my mouth hanging open, I sat and stared at my son.
*
Still in his early twenties, Jafer Dalal was a young man admired by all who knew him. He was both handsome and strong, with a serious but kindly countenance bespeaking quiet wisdom and calm strength. He was a charming conversationalist, a gentleman of refinement and courtesy. Jafer was one of but a few young men whom Kareem trusted completely with the women of his family.
Jafer was Abdullah’s dearest and most cherished friend.
Often I told Kareem that I would have liked to have known Jafer’s parents, for never had a man been better raised. But that could never be, for Jafer’s mother died when he was only twelve and his father was killed in the Lebanese civil war when Jafer was seventeen. His one brother, older by four years, had been critically wounded in the Lebanese war and was a permanent resident of a nursing facility located in the south of Lebanon. Orphaned while still a teenager and without any siblings to offer him shelter, Jafer moved from the only home he had ever known and traveled to live with an uncle in Kuwait, who managed some businesses for a wealthy Kuwaiti.
As a Palestinian Sunni Muslim, born and raised in the refugee camps of southern Lebanon, Jafer did not have an easy life.
After the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, the PLO stood behind Saddam Hussein. It was not surprising that after the war ended there was much resentment by the Kuwaiti citizens toward the large Palestinian population. While Jafer’s uncle and his family had remained loyal to their Kuwaiti sponsor and could have remained in Kuwait, there was such a backlash of antagonism toward anyone with Palestinian identification that the Kuwaiti sponsor recommended that the family move to another land. The kindly man did not want such a fine family to risk danger by remaining in Kuwait. “Let a few years pass,” he promised, “and the crisis will be over.”
This Kuwaiti sponsor co-owned a business with Kareem, and he suggested to my husband that Jafer’s uncle would make an excellent employee for a particular job opening in that company’s offices in Riyadh.
As there was some bitterness at the time between our king and Yassir Arafat with regard to the Gulf War, there was a political movement in Saudi Arabia to avoid employment of people with Palestinian nationality. As a high-ranking prince, however, Kareem could do as he pleased. On the recommendation of his Kuwaiti partner, he employed Jafer’s uncle.
After the man arrived in Riyadh, he became one of Kareem’s most trusted employees, assigned difficult tasks and responsible posts. Jafer accompanied his uncle and so impressed my husband that he was given a management position in Kareem’s law offices.
From the moment Abdullah was introduced to Jafer, the two young men became fast friends, Abdullah claiming Jafer as the brother he never had.
Jafer came into our lives only two short years ago, yet he quickly became a beloved member of our family.
Conspicuously attractive, Jafer drew much female attention wherever he went in the city. Abdullah claimed that women passed his friend notes of invitation while in hotel restaurants. Once, when Jafer accompanied Abdullah to the King Faisal Hospital and Research Centre to visit a royal cousin who was hospitalized there, three foreign nurses volunteered their telephone numbers to Abdullah’s friend after the briefest of conversations.
I thought Jafer wise beyond his years, for it appeared that he lived a life of celibacy in a land that frowned upon illicit relationships between men and women.
Sensing that the young man was lonely and of an age to settle down, Kareem reproached Jafer for his persistent bachelorhood. Making serious offers to introduce Jafer to Lebanese or Palestinian contacts, men who might introduce him to marriageable Muslim women from those countries, Kareem declared that it would be a tragedy if Jafer avoided love, adding that even good men could be ruined by too much virtue!
With a wink in my direction, Kareem mischievously added that all men should experience the pleasures and tribulations of female companionship.
In jest, I made a threatening move toward my husband, for I knew the truth—that Kareem, a happy father, could not fathom a life without children.
Kareem failed in his attempt to provide female company for the young man whom he had grown to respect and love, for Jafer never accepted Kareem’s generous invitations.
Abdullah added to the mystery by saying that his friend was polite but firm in refusing all offers of female companionship. I was puzzled but so consumed by the problems presented by my daughters that I thought little more of Jafer’s private life.
Looking back, I wondered how we could have thought that a full-blooded, sensual man like Jafer would scorn all that love had to offer?
The truth as to why Jafer had deferred marriage was made known in a most devastating manner that threatened to end in tragedy.
*
Abdullah, who had loved Jafer with perfect sincerity, now let his grief swell to great proportions. There was something disarmingly childlike about him as he complained, “Jafer never told me about Fayza.”
It was the darkest time of Abdullah’s young life. My son’s disheveled innocence pierced my heart, and it was difficult for me to believe at that moment that he would soon celebrate his twentieth birthday.
At that moment Kareem arrived, as angry as Abdullah was sad.
“Abdullah!” he shouted. “You have risked your life and the lives of innocents!”
Kareem told me that when Abdullah was informed of Jafer’disappearance, he became distraught and left Kareem’s offices in a dangerous mood. Fearful for his only son’s safety, Kareem followed in hot purs
uit. My husband claimed that Abdullah drove his automobile through the streets of the city at high speed. Kareem said that at one point Abdullah’s car crossed the center lane and forced a line of drivers from the road.
“You could have been killed!” Kareem was so agitated at the possibility that he reached across and slapped our son’s face.
The sharp slap shocked and silenced my husband.
Over the years of my children’s turbulent growth, I have pinched and slapped all three of them with irresistible pleasure.
Never had Kareem struck one of our children! Kareem was as stunned by his action as I, staring down at his offensive hand as though it were not his own.
He embraced his shivering son and apologized, saying that in the course of following Abdullah’s reckless path, he had gone out of his mind with worry.
The room was filled with emotion, and it took many moments for the mystery of Jafer and Fayza’s hidden romance to be completely revealed.
Fayza was the daughter of Fouad, Kareem’s partner in three foreign businesses. Fouad was not of the Al Sa’ud family but distantly related by marriage to a daughter of a royal.
Many years before, Fouad was allowed to wed into the royal family, even though he was not from a clan of the Najd (the central area of Saudi Arabia), nor was his tribe particularly close to the Al Sa’uds. Generally, Al Sa’ud women were wed out of the family only for political or economic reasons. Fouad was from a prosperous Jeddah trading family that had bitterly fought the Al Sa’uds during the early days of the formation of the kingdom.
Anxious to forge a bond between his family and the rulers of the land, Fouad offered an immense dowry for Samia, a princess who, we often said in kindness, was spared the distracting handicap of being a great beauty.
No one in the royal family could believe Samia’s good fortune, for she was long resigned to remaining a spinster, cruel gossip about her bad skin, small eyes, and bent back having stripped away all marriage possibilities.